


what kills you (what carries your beating heart)

by Anonymous



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Dark, Gen, M/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 01:31:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15546648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Be discreet, but do what is necessary.” His employer instructs.The man smiles. It does not reach his eyes. “Understood.”---(This is how it starts. A gun. A boy. A room.Two of those are the same thing.)





	what kills you (what carries your beating heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiyodayo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiyodayo/gifts).



> Based on hiyodayo's prompt of 'Mafia AU' that went wildly out of proportion and wack.
> 
> Heck, even the day after I first wrote this I don’t know what it is. I did drift back into my normal writing style while drafting this, a style that has been described as pretentious and poetic. I pray you’ll forgive me.

> But how could you live and have no story to tell?

_\- Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights._

 

> I sit up in the dark drenched in longing.  
>  I am carrying over a thousand names for blue that I didn’t have at dusk.

_\- Joy Harjo, The First Day Without a Mother._

 

.

.

.

 

This is how it starts:

(This is how it ends:)

The place is Italy, a holiday villa far from the hustle and bustle of America’s urban cities. Lights dance across a lake, far off in the distance- but here it is yet a little dark, the room lit by lamps and a glittering chandelier. But shadows linger in the corners, linger with the guards posted at the entrance, stood by the windows.

A slim dossier is passed across a desk. A Cuban cigar is lit. Somewhere, in the distance, the ringing of sirens, a car alarm.

“Be discreet, but do what is necessary.” His employer instructs.

The man smiles. It does not reach his eyes. “Understood.”

\---

(This is how it starts:

A gun. A boy. A room.

Two of those are the same thing.)

\---

He flies first class. Accepts a drink when offered by the hostess, and does not take notice of the way she smiles at him- hooded eyes and red smile, fingers lingering a little long on the glass she places on the table.

He leaves the glass undrunk.

The dossier and the documents held within are long burned, ashes cold in a fireplace in Italy. Still he can recall every word of it, every shade of detail on the photos included in the slim file (blue eyes, dark hair, the sharp line of a jaw).

The man thinks it over as the world beneath him blurs into swatches of colour, blue on green on gray. As it disappears into pastel white cloud.

He concludes: there are only two ways this will end.

\---

This is the prayer all small things make, grubby palms pressed in a semblance of worship to no god that will be benevolent. This is a prayer of hunger and hungry things: how to stifle primal need by eating your own heart. Lick clean the empty husk left behind.

But empty things leave ghosts in their wake. Blood itself is its own ghost, washed away and always lingering. Over and over, whispering until the boy grips his head, until he covers his ears to make the screaming stop.

Look- the boy is a man is a monster, the tracks of his knuckles, the tracks of beaten blue up his arms, mapped bones and mapped veins- they all lead to the same place. They all tell the same story, foreshadow the same end.

(But stripped of their eloquence, all stories end the same.

It is only a matter of when.

It is only a matter of:

Afterwards, will anyone be left to tell yours.)

\---

In the hotel room he stays on the first night, the world is silent. Empty, outside this room with the king-sized bed and the mahogany furniture. Perhaps it is the quiet that makes it this way: windows shut, door locked, nothing but air conditioning and circulating oxygen, quiet enough that any reality outside becomes a dream, half heard in the corridor and unreal.

He closes the blinds and turns on every light until the room is bright despite the night pressing against its walls. He checks and cleans his gun. Assembles and disassembles his rifle before placing it back into its case.

By the end of the hour, his nails are darkened from the gun oil. It will not wash out.

“Hush,” the woman on the television says, cradles her child with whitened hands, “Hush, child. It will be alright.”

Static invades the channel, a low buzz that snaps and crackles until Connor switches it off.

His head is quiet, so quiet it echoes with it. With

 

(Nothing.)

\---

When he sleeps, lights bright and blinding around him, he dreams of nothing but the dark.

\---

A cuckoo clock, a low, mechanical tick, a pendulum swinging in the room.

Time is running, running.

“He visited your establishment two weeks ago, on the eighteenth of August. Tell me where he is.”

The man knocks the gun out of the woman’s hand and presses his own to her forehead. Moves it down to her leg, over her kneecap. Waits a beat, so she understands what is happening.

He pulls the trigger and the sound vibrates through him, echoes in all the hollow places hidden under his gloves, his jacket, his shirt.

 _Oh_ , his chest, this hallow and hollow thing. No place for anything but silence inside it, no place for anything but the white of bone stripped of flesh.

(But remember- echoes, echoes like hollow places. Will linger in them for years. Will build, slow and sure, build into a clamouring flood of a thing.)

The woman is screaming, distantly.

“Tell me where he is.” Connor repeats, and moves his gun to her other knee.

\---

There are various things Connor has. His name. His mission. The gun holstered at his side.

He took his name from a broken and beaten boy, pulled a knife across his throat and felt his bruised mouth with his tongue and found it wet with blood, swallowed it so it became part of him again. He grappled his gun from the hands of a shaking animal, shoved it under the dead thing’s convulsing throat and pulled the trigger. Left it a splattered mess for the vultures to eat.

Everything he has he took.

And still. Nothing he has belongs to him.

(A long time ago- a white room, a gentle voice.

What is your name, the voice asks.

He has no name.

A name he takes can be just as easily taken away.)

\---

The soft twitter of birdsong when he wakes in the morning, the wind through the trees through the window, does that memory belong to him? Does that moment?

When he stands his shadow shudders and writhes beneath him, a misshapen thing at his feet, the monster his pressed cuffs and straight tie can’t hide.

The hotel is quiet in the mornings, the buffet line empty as the sun starts to rise. He arranges his plate with a ham and cheese croissant, a square of brie and broccoli quiche, sliced melon and buttered toast with jam. Cuts his food into squares, every square precise, eats until the plate is cleared and the glass of orange juice he’d picked up is down to the dregs.

In truth, he does not know how to taste it.

And still, the citrus of the orange juice lingers after he leaves. Somewhere settled in his chest until there is another body in the pier and he is in a nondescript bathroom washing the blood from his hands. And then it is in his throat, in his mouth, in the sink he is gripping with shaking hands.

His breath comes out loud, in gasping pants that do not end.

(It will pass.)

\---

You are an asset, they say. You are worth something, to us.

You are nothing, they mean. You are nothing and you are worth nothing, and you will fight for us and die for us and

(And.)

(You will have been worth nothing.)

\---

“Do you know where he is now?” He settles into the chair, takes the tea he is offered and smiles but does not drink it. The smile almost reaches his eyes. Like a ghost that tries but cannot.

(This is all he is, see? This man made weapon. This boy made ghost who follows at the man’s shoulder, lost and dead and unwilling to pass on, touching but never holding, hands stretching but never reaching.)

They speak for twenty minutes or more, he listens and nods and murmurs at the right points in time, leads her words until he arrives at what he needs to hear.

“Thank you.” He says, and only shoots her once her back is turned.

Later, in his motel room, on the ragged carpet: his hands trembling, his forehead on his knees, clutching the black fabric of his pants. Shuddering. Back and forth on his heels, a motion he must have learned somewhere but he does not know where, an unsteady rocking that sends him to sleep.

\---

He wakes- holding himself. Three in the morning, no light but the blinking of a digital clock, no sound but the throttle of a motorbike, rushing down the street.

No soft places in this body he calls home (always ready to pack up and move, leave and never return), nothing to protect (the fleshy stomach and brittle bones of tender things, breakable things)- and yet his hands are numb from the clutching, he is huddled in on himself, he is black and blue from the moonlight through the blinds, only slits of pale skin left amidst the dark.

Here, in the dark, he forgets his name.

“Hush,” he says, desolate and disconsolate through the ringing in his head, “Hush, child.”

After a thing is disassembled and reassembled, something will always tick wrong.

This is how it goes.

\---

In a convenience store off the main street, the radio behind the counter plays an old 70s song.

_Hey you, with you ear against the wall, waiting for someone to call out._

He picks out a sandwich and a drink, a newspaper hanging from a rack, a peach from a basket of fruit.

In the back of his mind, in the dark of his mind, he wonders what they want from the man he is hunting. But it is not Connor’s place to wonder. It is his place to follow- and the trail is not yet cold, he will pursue the thread until it ends. Until he can snap it with his own two hands. That is all he needs to think about.

He pays with pocket change, realizes a moment late that he must have been holding the peach too hard. It’s bruised in the shape of fingerprints, in the shape of his palm.

(but then- is it such a surprise? he has never known how to hold a soft thing without bruising it. as long as you can still eat it, and he will eat anything- a war, a blade, a heart.)

 _Hey you_ , the radio sings, tinny and high. _Don't tell me there's no hope at all_.

\---

Under a rotting ceiling, he dreams of the sky.

There are no stars.

(The humans have eaten them all.)

The sky is dark, and the darkness is terrifying, isn’t it?

Look, listen, somewhere in the corner, somewhere in the darkness where you can’t see- there’s still a boy. Hiding, trembling. Afraid of his own shadow.

\---

The thread leads him across the world, pulls taut and goes thin but never disappears- not entirely.

Sometimes, in stories, they talk about a red thread of fate. And this thread is dyed red enough, is long enough- and all stories have their roots in truth (only maybe not like this, only not with the death at his heels, her head resting on his shoulder).

He follows the thread for days mounting to weeks mounting to months, lets it tug him to Paris and its winding alleys; to Hong Kong, the neon lights and clouded skies; to the dry knolls housing graveyards in Italy- a pattern turned a rhythm turned the beat of his heart.

And, eventually, the thread leads him back to Detroit.

\---

Across the street from the empty cathedral, it is raining. The streetlamps standing stooped under the weight of nothing more than light, flickering under the cloud-covered sun.

The dirt has turned to mud- primordial soup for the wriggling things that live under the earth, need nothing but lactic acid to separate and halve and separate again- a thousand lives turned into a million in a second longer than infinity.

Here, above ground, there is only a beating heart and a throat working oxygen, a pair of footsteps scrubbed clean by water.

The man stands there for awhile, waits for something. For the rain to stop, but it does not. For the water to sink through his flesh, perhaps, for his breath to crumble to dust-turned-mud, but it does not.

After a moment, a minute, a time uncountable, he moves. The rain covers the dry damp his footsteps leave behind. Washes away the imprints.

The world watches him go. And mute, it watches him disappear between the cathedral doors. Forgets he ever existed.

\---

The cathedral is damp, inside. An old, musty damp that tickles the nose and is yet comfortable on the inhale.

Here, the light scatters. Stained glass mosaics that transform it into something holy, transmute dust motes into a glittering fog.

The man standing at the altar closes a book. His back is turned on Connor. “I have to admit, I’d hoped to have a little more time. You’ve done well to find me.”

Connor raises his gun.

“Better than I thought you would. It’s unfortunate that it had to entail the death of several close acquaintances.”

The man turns, light fracturing as it hits his face, the sharp, cold curve of a smile at his lips.

“You are Connor, yes?”

\---

Once upon a time, there is a boy. A child whose mother tells him stories, fairytales to carry his dreams away for the night. Not all those tales end well. In some, there are monsters under the bed.

Children grow up.

(The stories do not say: the monsters grow up with them.)

So there is a monster in this room, under the bed or on it. There is a child in this room, but it is only the child all monsters used to be- once upon a time.

\---

“Your employers should know I am no threat, nor do I intend to be a threat.” Elijah Kamksi’s mouth curls in a cold smile.

Lie.

“My orders are to take you with me, or to eliminate you should you refuse.” Connor’s grip on his gun is steady, aimed at the man’s forehead. At this range, the probability he will miss is zero.

“Why are you serving them.” The man tilts his head. “I left because their values no longer aligned with mine. I do not think they have ever aligned with yours. There are others who feel the way I do, others who were just like you.”

Lie.

“You are on the run.” Connor says. “Evidence points that you are working alone. It is in your best interest to comply with me and return.”

“You are nothing.” The man says.

Truth.

Connor is nothing, is no-one, he is a number (#313 248 317). A number can be erased, a number will be replaced.

The man asks. “Who made you nothing?”

\---

_The room is pure white. Sterilized. Clean._

_There is a boy in the room, with dark hair that falls to his eyes and clothes too big for his skin. A heart still too big for his body._

_(Hearts can be chopped in half, quartered, cut down to size until it fits, small enough to be kept in the barrel of a revolver.)_

_“What is your name?”_

_The boy opens his mouth. Gives an answer, the only answer he knows._

_(Is true.)_

_“That is not your name.” The woman tells him. Her dark mouth glimmers blue, her dark eyes are kind. “You do not have a name.”_

\---

See, there are two ways this ends:

The first; he succeeds in his mission. He kills this man or he returns with him. He returns to his employers. He is disposed of. This is the knowledge, staining his breath blue with the shame/terror/dull acceptance of it- secrets must be kept, what is known can be tortured out of anyone in the know. The last thread shall be cut. The last threat shall be eliminated.

The second way this ends; he is killed. He bleeds out on the cold cathedral floor. He fails his mission. He closes his eyes and they never open again.

(He was born on stone like this, cold and hard at his back. He was born wrecked and ruined, blue and purple staining every part of him until it seeped into his bones, until he swallowed the dirt they stuffed in his mouth and learned not to choke on the bones.

Maybe things come full circle.)

\---

“I have no intention of returning.” The man says. “So I think you have a choice to make.”

“Choose.” The man says, arms spread, palms tilted up, up. Behind him, a cross; a solid and antiquated thing, a man beaten in brass with his arms spread, with nails through his palms, bleeding gold- bleeding but the blood never reaches ground.

Connor’s hand is shaking.

\---

And maybe, when you get down to it, both choices end the same way.

\---

Once upon a time, a tree falls in a forest.

Once upon a time, many trees fall in a forest.

None of them linger in story save for as nameless things. None of them would have existed at all, had they not lingered.

Somewhere in Hong Kong there is a man still stood on a beach. The sea has erased his footsteps, the wind has taken his breath. No proof of existence except in the fluttering of a tie, a heartbeat tethered to sand.

Saltwater will wash away his ghost.

\---

There are two types of creatures in the world. Nature can be broken down to this single dichotomy: predator, prey.

(And maybe the morale of this story is: you are not the person you thought you were.)

\---

You know how this ends.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

There’s a palm stroking his hair, gentle fingers settling on the nape of his neck, cradling his cheek. Tilting his head up even as it lolls.

The tenderness is almost familiar, and yet not in a way Connor knows. Not in a way he can define. For how to define tenderness when he knows it only blood painting his mouth, and how to define intimacy when he understands it only as a heart in his hand, his hand through someone’s chest. Flesh and muscle and bone and all, gore that lingers in the places under nails and skin creases.

(This is how the line blurs. This is only the omen of how he will fall.)

“There’s another way this ends, Connor. There’s always another way.” He hears Kamski’s voice through the fog, through the pounding of his head and the pinprick of pain in his neck.

He should have known. _He should have known_.

His mouth opens but his tongue is heavy, the air presses on his shoulders until he can’t hold himself up. He wants to reach for his gun, but he doesn’t know where it’s fallen, he can’t feel with his hands any more.

The darkness is reaching for him, behind his eyelids. Something is shaking, something is shuddering and gasping, and it must be him.

(Look, in the corner, the monster is a man is nothing more than a boy, terrified of the greedy dark that wants to take him and claim him and strip him to the bone and devour him.)

The haze obscures Connor and it’s rising over his head and pushing him down. Into the depths where he cannot see.

“Hush,” the man murmurs. Callused fingers smooth across his hair. He trembles for the tenderness _the cruelty_ of it. “It’s alright, it’s alright.”

The soft croons continue, nonsensical murmurs that fade into his skin, settle his brittle, crumbling bones until he is shaking no longer.

There’s a feather-light touch on his forehead, dry lips pressing a kiss or a promise.

“After you wake, we’ll speak again.”

The darkness swallows him whole.

\---

( _They made you a weapon_ , the man will say, not yet but soon. _They made you a weapon. So use it against them_.)

**Author's Note:**

> If you did end up liking this writing style, there's another fic with a similar style I'm writing here: [carry your dreams in your mouth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15465765).
> 
> Leave me a kudos =D!


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